The United States Senate on Tuesday passed the Kids Online Safety and Privacy Act (KOSA), a bill that aims to protect children from harmful content online and hold internet companies accountable for exposing minors to content that can harm their mental health.
KOSA would establish a “duty of care” for internet platforms, requiring them to use reasonable care to prevent any foreseeable harm to minors. Companies therefore would need to “prevent and mitigate” certain harms to minors, including mental health disorders, physical violence and narcotic drug use.
The bill would require online platforms to provide minors with “readily-accessible” safeguards that allow the users to protect their personal data, limit features that encourage increased screen time and control their personalized algorithms. KOSA also requires parental controls in certain instances, allowing parents to view and manage their child’s privacy and account settings.
The Senate passed KOSA on a vote of 91-3, sending the bill to the House of Representatives. Multiple senators, including New York Senator Chuck Schumer, attended a press conference after the vote on Tuesday to express their support of the bill. Schumer stated on X that KOSA is “[t]he most important update to federal laws protecting kids on the internet in decades,” and that children must be protected from seeing “suicide or substance abuse material promoted online.”
Parents for Safe Online Spaces (ParentsSOS), an initiative formed by families who say their child’s death was linked to social media harms, also celebrated the bill’s passage. The group’s co-founder Maurine Molak stated, “We have long awaited the day when our government takes decisive action against the exploitative practices of Big Tech that needlessly expose our young people to dangerous, sometimes deadly situations.”
The bill, however, has also sparked heavy criticism by certain tech companies, rights groups and free speech advocates. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) condemned the bill’s passage on Tuesday, claiming KOSA would violate the First Amendment of the US Constitution. The ACLU argued that KOSA will “enable[e] the federal government to dictate what information people can access online and encourage social media platforms to censor protected speech.”
The organization also claimed the bill would not only fail to protect children but would also threaten their privacy and limit their access to online resources, in addition to potentially violating their freedom of expression.
Senior Policy Counsel at the ACLU Jenna Leventoff stated:
As state legislatures and school boards across the country impose book bans and classroom censorship laws, the last thing students need is another act of government censorship deciding which educational resources are appropriate for their families. The House must block this dangerous bill before it’s too late.
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden was one of three senators to vote against the bill. He said that he “strongly” supports certain aspects of the bill but is concerned about others, including the possibility that “a future MAGA administration could still use this bill to pressure companies to censor gay, trans and reproductive health information.”
Calls for legislation that protect minors’ safety and privacy online have surged in recent years. President Joe Biden expressed support for such legislation in March, and states like New York and California have pushed legislation aimed at protecting children from “addictive” social media algorithms.
